The Kindness of Strangers like me

I guess I just give off that general vibe of someone who has their shit together.

I will be walking down the street in any random town and get asked for directions. Or a lighter, or a piece of string, or the correct spelling of some obscure word (not making that one up, FYI) or where to find a decent Chinese restaurant, or a dry cleaners… That’s on the side of the better angels of my nature. I also get hit up for small change and asked if I want to buy “some shit” or some stolen jewlery… On the geezer side of my nature I guess.

Now, being asked directions is just one of those things that happen enough that I would remark on it. And on a good day I’ll help if I can. On a bad day, though… I’ll just send you off at random. Irish style. Looking very businesslike you look people in the eye and send them right into the blue. That ought to teach them trusting someone like me. Relying on the kindness of random strangers is like taking candy from uncle John in the park – just don’t do that, okay? I try not to play with the bunnies too often, though. That kind of thing can have a karmic backlash.

But, what strikes me as funny about this is that I get asked for directions pretty much anywhere I go – even if it is a town I’ve never been in before. Complete stranger in a strange town must be fair game right? I try to be better than I am, really I do. But sometimes … Well. It’s like that prayer of St Augustine. Make me chaste – but not just yet. (If you’re a stickler, the quote is actually: Grant me chastity and continence, only not yet).

Today I was walking down the street with my most competent pants on and got stopped, as per usual, by some bloke asking for a light and directions, both of which I supplied. And the guy says “you can always find nice people, like you, to help.”

Well.

Ahem.

What are you supposed to say to that? I guess we both lucked out. I actually set him on a true path. I was having a good day, what can I say. I am a lamb. I am full of the milk of human kindness. I just had my coffee, okay?

ROL

Plan Ahead, Children…

It’s raining.

No, really. It’s raining.

I mean serious head-for-the-rafts rain.

I now have the opportunity to make an interesting observation. I was chatting casually to some people at work today who were looking unusually despondent. “Why the long faces?” They were going to a wedding.

That didn’t seem like the thing you should look like a kicked puppy for.

It was an outdoor wedding. And the wedding party didn’t have a Plan B. You should always have a Plan B. An escape hatch, at least. A tent. Something.

I am not a likely candidate for getting married. Partly because I am a horrible pair of old cynicky-boots and partly because no-one will have me. But it’s mostly the boots thing.

If, and that’s a big fucking If, mind you, I was going to get married I would certainly not go in for any of that new-age hippie pagan-vegan crap. There will be no reciting of poetry under the canopy or listening to the gulls at the beach while someone plays the panpipes. We’ll go Old School. Only way to do it really. Otherwise what’s the point? You’re going to wake up with “Property Of …” tattooed on your ass anyway. Might as well do it in front of God and sundry.

Anyway – I check the forecast. It is grim. It says rain, rain, rain and more rain for the next twenty-four. Cold, wet and windy.

That wedding is going to suck out loud.

Which brings me to the interesting observation. I have some friends and acquaintances who have gotten married (and yes, there were some pagans) and they seems to plan a whole hell of a lot for the wedding, but spare not one thought for the actual marriage as such. I mean you should at least let your thoughts glance off the idea of what your life will become afterwards. Ricocheted reflection if nothing else.

And that’s why I will probably never go there. I always see the potential for failure, to coin a phrase. I just thought that was an interesting observation… in an observationally interesting kind of way.

ROL

Bruised ribs and random darkness

Ok so never mind the twelve-hour work day or the fact that my colleague bruised my ribs with a door… I am starting to think we’ve got imps. I mean – why else would these things keep happening? You can blame it on faulty wiring or shoddy workmanship or whatever the hell you like – too many things that can’t really happen, and certainly not twice, keep happening all the damn time.

And the problem is – we are dependant on a lot of tech stuff for everything to work. I mean you can’t even get through the door if the power goes out. And most of the time everything works. But some of the time nothing works. And some of the time the stuff that doesn’t work does so in interesting and unexpected ways. That’s when you get calls from the fire departement politely asking if you’re having a little fire or what? I love that calm and somehow surreal conversation you have with their staff where the lady I talk to sounds like one of those ship computers from a distant future (well, maybe not that distant…) that put you in mind of HAL 9000 aboard the Discovery.

Also, going dark creates a two second “be very still – what the hell just happened” feeling where you just freaze up like a rabbit that has just been shrouded in a decidedly eagle shaped shadow. And then there is disbelief. And, because I am getting used to this kind of thing (which is sick and wrong for many reasons), I think it’s kind of funny. I don’t freak out as badly as the people around me. I oversee the ensuing chaos with mild amusement. “There, there. Now, now”.

Had we been deeply rural, out in the boonies, or working in house built on an old Indian burial ground these things had been less surprising – but we are right in the middle of town. Right in the thick soup of modern life with everything that entails. So, this shit should not happen. And it certainly shouldn’t happen with such alarming regularity.

Ok – back to my bruised ribs. Me and Mr Colleague Nr One were carrying a door. Never mind why. A full sized, solid fire safety door still in the frame is pretty heavy, putting it mildly. After having had the ususal conversation which goes something like this:

-Let’s tilt it to the right.

-Ok, Nr One Colleague. My right or your right?

-?

-We’ve facing each other. So my right or your right?

-Mine.

-Is it locked?

-?

And just as I ask the door slips open and almost takes my fingers off as it closes again. Ok, that was pretty much a given. On the way down the stairs (two flights) Colleague Nr One gets a little carried away and manages to push instead of following as I back down nice and slow, to I get the entire weight of the door concentrated to just one corner jammed into my ribs.

Bad language happens at this point. You have a tendency to fall back on the classics at moments like those. I might have mentioned his mother. Parts of the animal kindom. Anatomy. Genetics. That sort of thing. What freaked him out was that I did so in a soft and mild voice. Surveing the damage when I got home and stepped in the shower I realise that somewhere along the line I must have gotten my clavicle banged up as well. The irony is that that hurts so much worse. It’s just bone. There wasn’t even a bruise… Ribs bend, I guess. That’s the way they were designed. Clavicles don’t even give a little.

Time to coin a new saying here? “I am a rib I can bend” instead of “I am a reed…” Hmm… Maybe not.

ROL

ROL

Migrane Blues

Drugs.

Nothing heavy. But, still … drugs. I am not advocating the use of illegal substances – I am merely stating the blatantly obvious need for drugs to cure all that ails me. I get migranes. I am an insomniac. I have an aneyrism waiting to happen. Not just when computers fuck up or I have to resort to shit like listening to The Call of the Loon (I haven’t sunk that low yet). As a general rule I don’t take pain killers, but when it gets so that I can’t speak, sleep, think and I move like an old, broken down mule I definitely think its time for something stronger than a tripple espresso.

Over the counter stuff doesn’t cure a migrane. It just moves it a little. Nudges it further down the line. Shifts it away from the frontal lobe and past the amygdala. It winds up lurking in the occipital lobes sending tendrils down the base of the skull into the neck. And there it resides, laughing. Or rather, cackling and playing the violin like Nero while Rome burns. And, yes, I know that’s an anachronism, thank you, there were no fiddles in ancient Rome and the whole thing is probably a myth anyway. But picture a tiny, mad fiddler doing the two step in my lower brain with a pair of steel tipped boots on and you’ve got a pretty good mental image of what a lurking migrane feels like. It isn’t actually going anywhere. And it likes reminding you of that every time you stand up: whooo… colours drain and there’s just a kind of squelshing noice. That’s your brain trying to run away. You get a nice, tight feeling in your shoulders too. When you roll them they snap, crackle and pop. Feels like your skeleton has some added bone in it. You’re just bonier than normal.

Anodynes are a beautiful thing, sure, but they can’t carry you all the way. You still have to get out of bed in the morning, and that’s all on you. You have to convince the parts of your mind, or un-mind, that keep telling you it’s Monday already and it’s your day off, and that wasn’t really the alarm going off, that was just a dream. Almost had me going there for a while this morning, too. I almost believed I skipped ahead a day. Almost. But not quite. Brain is clever, mind is clever too. Body is basically still asleep and asking not to be bothered at the moment. Brain tells Mind “stop lying and get out of bed”. Mind goes “no, no, this is our day off. Let’s go back to sleep”. Brain goes “don’t you think I would have noticed if I missed a whole day? What are we having black-outs now? Get up!” Mind goes off to sulk.

Hmmm… Ok so they claim that migranes are partly caused by stress. I am not a particularily stressed-out person. I get ranty about things sure, but that’s basically just releasing the preassure so I don’t have to do something rash. Ok, valves and preassure and stuff going on. But in my essence, in the eye of the storm – not stressed. Assumptions though are that I must, though.  You don’t get photophobia and hyperacusis that way. You don’t get nausea and loss of apetite either. Hen, egg – whatever. It’s the same thing with the insomnia. It’s just inate. Hen -egg – whole fucking chicken farm, two foxes and a box of crackers thrown in. Genetics is a crapshoot anyway.

I consider myself lucky that you can no longer buy laudanum over the counter. Have you seen From Hell? Johnny Depp sits in the bathtub. He’s smoking a black cherute, mixing his absinth with laudanum and trying to relax. That’s where you’d find me, if times were more forgiving and laws less dainty. In the bath with a cherute, a bottle of Absinth and a bottle of laudanum – add to taste.

ROL

The Call of the Loon

You’re not always the target audience… That’s sometimes becomes blatantly obvious. I stumbled on a CD, actually a collection of CDs.. supposed to make you all relaxed and mellow. That’s got to be a good thing, right? Or, wait, maybe I should double check that. I read the sleeve and laughed my ass off. Pretty sure that’s not the kind of nice and relaxed they wanted me to be.

This is the actual sleeve with my reflections folded in:

Relax and reflect, as the music and sounds of Nature’s Magic take you on a wondrous journey with the gentle giants of the sea. Okay, so far so good. I can do that. I can relax and listen to the gentle giants. Listen as dolphins and humpback whales, intelligent docile creatures, gracefully glide through clear ocean waters. Wait… What? Dolphins kick sharks’ asses on a regular basis. We do know that, right? Dolphins are intelligent, as far as fish go, but they don’t hang out with whales, do they? And whales – are they really intelligent? Docile? I don’t know. I thought those calls were partly territorial. That means they’re basically saying “don’t come over here, those are my krill. I’ll kick you ass…” The resonant whale song, like an orchestra of cellos, echoes throughout the sea as they playfully, with fluid motion, embrace one another with their long, curved tails. WAIT… WHAT? Embrace one another with their tales? What? Do they do that? Who’s been watching too much Disney? How the hell are they going to do that? Dolphins, with ballet precision, leap and frolic performing thrilling summersaults in the air, like aquatic acrobats. Ok, so I’m not touching the whole aquatic acrobatics IN THE AIR thing, but I don’t see how I can let them get away with frolicking. What are they, gay dolphins? Who can maintain any kind of kick-ass attitude while frolicking? And what sound does a frolic make? The rest of the school, an appreciative audience, click, giggle and whistle at the captivating antics so gleefully displayed. Ok, so I like a dolphin as much as the next guy, but you can’t tell my that high-pitched whine is in any way enjoyable to listen too. And the clicking. The clicking and eh, giggling, is that really something you want to listen to? I mean isn’t that like the guy in the almost empty library with severe OCD clicking his pen over and over and over and over… and then one more time… And then whistling. No, that’s just painful. Sorry. Not relaxing me one bit here.

I guess the real kicker was when I saw that the fourth CD in the collection of the magical mystery of nature thingy was called the Mystical Call of the Loon. Well, I guess they got that part right.

I’m going to sit down and relax now. And quite possibly play some Rammstein.

ROL

A special hell

Teoretically there is nothing that says that your computer-guy has to inform you about what he’s up to. Most of the time I’m not sure i would understand what he’s on about anyway. But there are some things, some minor little details, some inconsequential, trivial little things that I really would like to know.

Like when he changes my password.

I told myself I was done ranting about work for a while, because everything seemed to be working. Well, more or less. Well, at least the ways in which things weren’t working were starting to feel familiar.

This was a new one, though.

There i sit, minding my own business, quietly working away until I try to access one of the necessary tools of my trade and … it goes “nope. nuh-uhu. can’t do that. invalid password.” So I try again, thinking I might have accidentally hit caps lock or whatever. “Access denied.” And I get that look on my face again. Dismay. Battle fatigue. Incredulity. The computer is asking me “what’s the magic word?” and I am sure none of the ones that come to mind are going to help at all.

I have to backtrack. I have to cross my arms to keep from hitting something. I also need coffee. And a vacation. And an UZI.

Ok, so, mind like a steel ball. I should be able to work this out. You go through all the phases of denial anger bartering and acceptance. I finally figure out that the password has been changed. There’s two seconds of “oh, no, he didn’t… He couldn’t possibly have… the little… I’m gonna..” And then you have to just resign yourself to the fact that yes, he did. And no, I’m not allowed to rip off his own arm and beat him with it. Not that I wouldn’t like to. But it’s Saturday and we’ve only got a skeleton crew working and the guy isn’t here. By the time we’ll be working together I probably will be back to my normal reasonable self. There will be words, though. Some of them will be along the line of “the next time you feel the need to change my password could you please be so kind as to inform me about said change?”

There is a special hell for people who do this kind of thing. I think it is probably one of those dimensions where you speak Greek and everybody else speaks Cantonese. You can’t even read the signs. Nobody gives you a map. You don’t even know what you did to wind up there.

Well, that’s my vision anyway.

ROL

Riddle me this, Batman…

When I go to the movies I always hope for the isle seat. I bet you can guess why.

Went to the movies the other day to see the Batman spectacular. For some reason there is no law against the food that makes the noise! Crinkle crinkle goes the wrapping paper. Crunch crunch goes the popcorn. I can live with that most of the time – unless the patron next to me insists on making that horrible noise while the hero is leaning in over his lady-love pouring his heart out while the music whispers softly in the background like the susurrus of a breaking heart.

I get a bad feeling when the seat next to me get taken by a young lady not very well endowed in the height department, for which she had been amply compensated in girth. She narrowly avoids breaking my nose with her elbow as she struggles out of her jacket and then settles down, beginning a whispered conversation with her boyfriend – and it seems to be about who is supposed to hold on to the large bag of … deep fried pork rinds?

I don’t honestly know what I find more disturbing here – that Mr and Mrs Fatty McArse thought it was a good idea to spend two hours munching away at the movies, or that they thought pork rinds was the way to go, or that they brought them from home…

I’m not a big fan of the idea of eating at the movies. I think we should be able to go 1 hour and 31 minutes without grazing, but I have been informed that popcorn and movies go together like… well, popcorn and movies. I think it should be the responsibility of theatres to provide silent candy only. And there should certainly be no slurping! None what so ever. That noise goes straight to my tiger glands and makes me want to rip someone’s throat out.

Anyway – they settle the bag between them and start chewing, crunching and crinkling. I draw a breath. I am about to explain in my kindest, gentlest voice that they should please please please stop making that noise when the movie starts and a big grin spreads on my face. Picture a contented smiling Buddha, enlightened and at one with all the mellow parts of the universe. Dark Knight is … loud. In a good way. They start blowing shit up almost immediately. I can’t hear my munching neighbours. I can’t hear a damned thing except the movie. Surround sound THX explosions. Ah. Bliss.

I liked the movie for other reasons too – psychopath anarchist nihilistic bad guys are always a treat. Heath Ledger gives a great last performance as the Joker. He played the Joker like a chaos demon. The last two Batman movies have redeemed the genre somewhat from the camp performances that have gone before. And they raise some interesting questions about morality if you’re in to that kind of thing. They also blow up a lot of stuff – and that’s what you want. Good value for money.

Best of all – I didn’t have to beat anyone up with their own bag of candy.

ROL

Chocolate Ice Cream Bitch

I like the summer, fine enough. It’s all butterflies and lazy afternoons and sweating in the shower. Work isn’t all that much fun, but let’s be frank – it can’t be all fun and games (and computer fuck-ups). Ok, so I don’t sleep that much, because – light and heat, but then again, I don’t sleep much anyway and this way I can sit up until the wee hours of the night watching bad horror movies and no one will find it strange…

Let me amend that – no one will find it stranger than they ought to, given the basic premise. My friends think it’s perfectly normal when I go on about the vampire/werewolf/mad professor who had this girl trapped in the tower/dungeon/laboratory and the was slain by the hero/avenger/flock of peasants. They benignly let me go on about it for a while and then politely change the subject. I guess that’s how it goes. I’d rather be watching that than re-runs of Friends or whatever. You know the types of shows you get at two in the morning – man alive, the infomercials are scarier by far than anything that slithered out of the ocean like a shadow of Cthulhu risen from the deep.

I read at night too, when I’m not sleeping. Trying to further my edju-ma-cation. ‘Cause, yeah, you can never read to many books. Sometimes the stuff you read at that time of the night does take on a life of its own, which is why you should try to stay away from clinical anatomy, superstring theory and tales of desert survival. If you can’t work out why, just take my word for it.

Last night it rained. Thank deity-of-choice. I’ve worked eight days in a row, the weather turning me into a total chocolate ice cream bitch, and not doing much for the insomnia – and on my first day off I got to sleep late. Really late. I mean “get up for breakfast and it’s time to have lunch” late. It’s still hot enough to make sweat trickle down your back from just sitting upright, but at least it a dry heat… well, not really. “Maybe I could have chocolate ice cream for breakfast?” Was my first thought. But that would involve getting dressed and going out. So no.

See, this is what happens when you get a day off. There’s decadence and soft mellow feeling, which explains why this is more a meandering than a rant. Ah, I am a lamb. I am full of the milk of human kindness… I took that a little too far, huh? Give it time. I am sure something is bound to piss me off before nightfall.

ROL

Bad Tattoo and No Dress Sense

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but it’s been hotter than hell in my town for about a week now. People walk about in a daze, bottles of water in hand, wearing next to nothing and showing too much pale leg and bad tattoo.

The tattoo craze really has left a few indelible marks on people around here. And I think quite a few of them are going to be either slapping their foreheads or looking for the nearest lazer surgeon in a couple of years. Back in the day when you had to be either a con, a carney or a sailor to have a tattoo it was certainly a different esthetic that ruled. Anchors, hearts with MOM in them, doves of peace, birds of prey. Skulls and reapers and swords. Oh, my.

Now, I guess you get a tattoo thinking it will express your personality, or whatever the hell you happen to be enamoured with at the moment. Bad boys get badboy tattoos. Girls still get girly tattoos, mostly. The goths do the goth thing, the bikers do the biker thing. And then we have the regular joes and janes that try to be bikers, goths and cons. And mostly they just look like they haven’t done their homework.

Quite a few of my friends have tattoos. What I can say in their defense is that they do their homework. Think about what you´re marking yourself with. It’s going to be with you for a while. And people rarely stop at one, so make sure what you get fits with our other stuff. I think the most incongruous artwork I have seen so far is the slightly overweight Indian gentleman with the grim reaper tattoo over his entire upper arm. Kali I would have understood, but the reaper? And it was not very well executed either. It looked like a bad idea poorly done.

Meanwhile the only reason I get treated to all this body art is that folks are wearing next to nothing. “I see the girls go by dressed in their summer clothes…” That kind of thing. I know I’m getting old because my first thought when I see one of these lithe young things dressed in a over-large shirt-dress thing and nothing else is: “hey, you forgot to wear pants”. There’s that and the skirt so short you wonder if it’s actually a belt. And the guys… well, let’s just say I haven’t seen this much pale, striped bacon in a long while. Which makes you think “put your shirt back on, man. Sheesh. I don’t need to see you jiggle when you walk”.

Weather forcast promises rain. Good thing too, I think. Brains cool, clothes go back on. Thank Kali.

ROL

Localize it!

Problems problems…

I guess it doesn’t matter how much you fix things – in a general sense – if you don’t really know what is broken. I mean, I have been going slightly mad by degrees since this computer badness started happening because the minute you get one thing working somthing else craps out.

The whole “why is it only my profile that does not work” thing has been met with sniggers and sarcasm all around as well as derogatory comments about my skill and aptitude. And I have been trying to explain that the damned thing is possessed. I have stood over it reciting vade retro satana in a booming voice, unnerving my co-workers and they say it’s not the computer, it’s me.

Turns out I was right all along! Ha! Vengence is mine!

It is the computer. It’s not me – I am not being persecuted by the minor God of Computer Fuck-up. It might sound like a bad thing, but it really isn’t. It’s actually a good thing. Because now that we know what’s wrong we can bloody well fix it!!!

And I shall decend upon the tech like the mighty wrath of the minor God of Get It Done until he does.

Good thing too, I’ getting sick of hearing myself bitch about it.

ROL